Two Western Michigan University professors named American Council on Education fellows

KALAMAZOO, MI -- Two Western Michigan
University professors have been named American Council on Education fellows for
the 2013-14 academic year.

Linwood Cousins, director of the
School of Social Work, and Keith Hearit, professor of communication, were
among 50 senior faculty members and administrators in the U.S. named part of
the prestigious program.

WMU was one of just four U.S.
schools to have two of its faculty members selected. The others are Purdue and
Ohio State universities and the University of Texas at Arlington.

"To me, having the
opportunity to become an ACE fellow is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,"
said Hearit, who served as WMU's vice provost for strategic enrollment
management for five years. Before that, he was dean and associate dean of the
Lee Honors College.

Cousins rejoined the WMU School of
Social Work faculty in 2009 after serving as assistant professor from 1994 to
1999. After leaving the school, Cousins served as associate professor of
anthropology at Kalamazoo College, associate professor and interim chair in the
Social Work Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and
professor and chair of the Department of Social Work and Communications
Sciences and Disorders at Longwood University in Virginia.

Linwood Cousins

"The ACE program really is attempting to help make the path
to academic leadership a little more clear, a little more systematic, a little
more organized," said Hearit of the program, which was
founded in 1965.

That need is becoming more urgent, Hearit said.

"More and more (schools) are worried that our presidents,
by and large, are aging," he explained.

Surveys have shown that fewer mid-level administrators are
interested in taking on the president's and provost's positions, he said. Even
provosts are less inclined to seek a promotion to the top spot.

Fellows are nominated by their
presidents and chancellors and selected following a rigorous application
process.

"We
get attached to a college or university and work with senior leadership," said Hearit, who will be spending a semester at another university.

In addition, the fellows meet as a cohort throughout the year, he explained, to train and work on a project. In past years, for example, the ACE fellows did strategic planning to design a community college system for Indiana.

Margarita Benítez,
interim director of ACE's Emerging Leaders Group and the ACE Fellows Program,
noted that most previous fellows have advanced into major positions in academic
administration.

Nearly
2,000 higher education leaders have participated in the ACE Fellows Program since
its inception. More than 300 fellows have become chief executive officers of
colleges or universities, and more than 1,300 have served as provosts, vice
presidents and deans.

"The 2013-14 class of Fellows is a talented, diverse
group," said Benítez in a
statement. "The ACE Fellows Program will strengthen their leadership skills,
expand their networks and prepare them to tackle the wide array of issues facing
the higher education community."

Founded in 1918, ACE is the major coordinating body for all U.S higher education institutions, representing more than 1,600 college and
university presidents and more than 200 related associations nationwide.

Yvonne Zipp is a reporter for MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette. You can reach her at yzipp@mlive.com or 269-365-8639.